by Penn Rivers
I stared at the tile flooring, the words tumbling out now and the memories rattling my brain so it felt like a pebble in a tire.
“I put him in my arms. Carefully, because I didn’t know if I was safe to stand. If my legs would even work, because everything hurt so bad. His diaper was leaking. He was soaked with tears. But he calmed the instant I brought him to my chest.”
My words slowed. My heart calmed. I pressed my palm to the spot where I could remember a tiny Noah nuzzling his precious face.
“He knew me, Kane. Even broken and bruised, half out of it, and wrapped in the dark… he knew me. As I fed him, that’s when I realized he was mine. Not his father’s. He wasn’t born for cruelty. He was born for love. And if I didn’t find a way to protect him, he’d be in danger of turning out just as ugly as Rafe. Hurting others and loving it.”
I found Kane across the counter. His expression was furious. His breath sawed in his chest. But I had to finish.
“I made a plan to escape. I bided my time, healed. Saved what little money I was given because he wouldn’t let me work. I learned his business, his schedule. Learned who of his crew I could trust. Learned when I could get a message out to mama. Learned how to be sneaky. How to survive, because when I left, I was going to be on my own. On the run. And on the wrong side of the law, pretending to be someone else. It was going to be hard, I knew. And it was, it is. It’s not easy hiding from one of the meanest drug lords in the country. But I did it.”
I took a deep breath. It felt like a weight had been lifted. Why was confessing so liberating? Why did secrets poison our souls so badly? They were like chains around our heart, not allowing it to grow and thrive.
“But we’re still married. That’s what I was trying to tell you in the truck. I couldn’t divorce him and take the chance he’d get custody of Noah. Or worse… kill me. He found me once before, and we ran before he could catch us. Started over. New place, new name. And a hundred times more careful. Now he’s found me again. And I don’t want to uproot Noah when I can just take myself out of the picture. If we split up, Rafe won’t find him. So that’s what we’re going to do. That’s how I’ll keep my son safe now.”
I faced Kane, straightening my shoulders. It was out. It was all scraped clean. Now what?
“He needs to die,” he growled, as if it was the simplest solution. “I know men like that. Grew up with them. They don’t stop, Gemma. He needs to die for what he did to you.”
I knew that. Did I ever know that.
“We can talk to Sal. He’ll know what to do.”
I shook my head. “I can’t live with that. You understand, Kane? I can’t have a life on my hands, even one as worthless as his.”
He glared, his eyes narrowing to slits.
“Could you?” I asked. “Live with that?”
He came around the counter, crowding me, but I didn’t feel scared. I never felt scared with Kane.
Kane was safe.
He curved his palms around my cheeks, and I could feel the vibrations in his fingers that told me his control was a hairsbreadth away from slipping.
“He hurt you badly, Gem. I could kill him and not blink twice.” His breath mingled with mine. The amazing warmth of his body soaked into me, reminding me I had escaped Rafe’s cruelty. All I had to do was figure out a way to keep my life. “But I won’t, if you tell me not to.”
“Don’t,” I whispered.
Kane gave the smallest nod as a promise. “I’m keeping you. Understand me?”
I nodded, his hands still holding my face.
“He’ll never get you, and he’ll never get Noah. I’ll make sure of it. You’re mine now.” He pressed an urgent kiss to my lips, but it didn’t last. “Oh, yes. You’re mine. But Gemma… more than anything, you are yours.”
I shuddered at his words. Nothing had ever sounded so beautiful. So empowering. I was my own. I could be his and Noah’s and mama’s, but I was above all, my own. In charge of my own destiny. And Kane helped me see it.
Kane empowered me. That’s why he felt so safe.
I pressed my forehead to his, needing more contact. “Keep talking like that, and I might want to be yours forever,” I confessed.
Confessing. Apparently it was my new thing.
“Keep talking like that,” he rumbled. “And it might make me the happiest bastard on earth.”
Chapter Fourteen
KANAAN
Rafael “Rafe” Carlson was his name, and going by the pictures I’d found of him online and everything Gemma had told me, he was one cold-hearted fucker. My anger seethed just under the surface, prickling my skin. I wanted to ruin the guy. Pluck his eyes from his head. Feed him his own balls.
The anger was familiar. I’d felt it years ago, when I wanted revenge for my mother.
It was poison then, and it was poison now. Unless I could wrangle it the way Dr. Trammel had taught me. Use it to help, use it to protect.
Sitting at my small dining table, I scrolled through a new page of information on him while Gemma showered. Since it was Sunday and The Sapphire was closed, we had all night to figure out what to do about her situation.
Rafe ran quite a complex operation. A cartel outside of Houston. I’d been in the security business long enough to know a few backdoor ways into law enforcement data. From what I could tell, the guy was nowhere near getting tagged. He was careful, smart, and had a lot of people under his thumb. There was very little concrete evidence on him, and nothing that would get him locked away and off Gemma’s tail.
He was practically untouchable.
Sighing, I sat back in my chair.
This wasn’t like the lowlifes I’d chased off from my mom when I was big enough to. It wasn’t like the club scum. This was a dark criminal so deeply connected, he could order a hit on anyone who tried to help Gemma faster than we could blink.
A cold chill rolled up my spine.
He knew where she worked. He knew that much. What if he’d already been there, scoping it out, planning to strike? He could have sent someone in to get a feel for the place. It could be anyone, and we wouldn’t have known.
I flipped through the faces of the Sapphire.
Penelope, Eleanor, Jake, Sal, Marco… who could be trusted? Marco and Sal I’d trust with my life. But there were so many others.
Tapping my finger along my lip, the computer screen before me blurred to nothing. I kept seeing the faces. The bouncers, the dancers, the customers. People she interacted with on a daily basis. So many people…
I knew what to do.
If we couldn’t trust anyone, we had to trust everyone. We needed to pull the entire crew together and tell them what was happening to Gemma. Put the whole club on alert. There was safety in transparency.
From a security standpoint, it would accomplish two things. One, it would put all eyes on the lookout for Rafe. He wouldn’t set foot in the club without me knowing. And he certainly wouldn’t get close to Gemma.
And two, if he had anyone working for him on the inside, they’d be forced to lay low. It would hobble them. It was unlikely we had a mole situation, but I wouldn’t count it out. Not after Rhino.
Pushing away from the laptop, I hurried down the hall, thinking of nothing but telling Gemma my plan. I threw open the door to the bathroom, barging in like I owned the place.
I did own the place. But I wasn’t prepared for what I saw.
Gemma, through the semi-foggy glass shower door, bent so her round ass was pointing straight up. I could see the slightly darker slit of her pussy and the rosebud of her ass. They were like beacons calling me home, and my dick went from normal to steel-hard rod in a quarter second flat.
But then she popped up with a gasp, surprised to see me standing there. Her hands came up instinctively to cover her tits.
“Shit. Sorry.” But was I really? How could I feel sorry for the sexiest fucking image I could now pluck out of my memory anytime I wanted. I jerked my gaze away, giving her my back and her privacy.
; “No. Don’t be sorry,” she said. “You just surprised me.”
I ran my hands through my hair frustrated at myself, and at the problem in my jeans. “I needed to tell you something. Forgot to knock.”
“It’s okay.” Her voice had changed. It was softer, reminding me of how she’d sounded in the Champagne room when I’d pleasured her. “Come here.”
“You don’t want me to come close,” I warned. “Not with your body like that. All wet and soapy. I won’t want to keep my hands to myself. Or… other parts of me.”
There was a beat of silence, and I was about to step out so she could finish and I could pace off my hard-on.
“Who said I wanted you to keep anything to yourself? I thought we were giving everything. Isn’t that what you said?”
I had said that. But what I’d started in the kitchen wasn’t finished yet. She’d done her stripping down, but I hadn’t done mine. Taking care of her stalker problem had taken precedence over peeling back my layers for her.
Simply, there were things she should know about me before we took this farther.
I turned, unable to keep from looking when I now knew she wanted me to.
“I haven’t stripped it all down yet, Gem. We haven’t scraped out all my past like we did yours.”
She hadn’t moved a muscle since I’d looked away, but now she dropped her hands so her entire body was exposed. She was stunning here. In my home. Naked, without the flashing lights and smoky ambiance. She was perfect. I couldn’t find my breath.
“It’s okay if we haven’t gotten it all out yet,” she said, her eyes so soft on me through the glass. “We’ll get there. Together.”
I moved toward the shower. Tiny, unintentional steps. She was drawing me closer with just her look. I wanted my hands on that body again. I wanted her nipples between my teeth, her ass in my grip, and her nails in my back.
She tilted her head to one side, a little unsure, but she breathed, “Come here.”
I clenched my fists, grappling for control and trying to remember why I’d come in here in the first place. “Gem…”
“Kane.”
Her breathy tone had me snapping. I stalked forward, throwing open the shower door and stepping inside, clothes and all. Her arms came around my neck in the next breath and her warm, wet body pressed against me as our mouths clashed. My hands found every part of her body, sliding and squeezing her delicious curves. Her slender waist and delicate back. My touch was rough but I couldn’t be gentle.
I pressed her backward against the tile wall, the water raining over me and soaking my clothes. She moaned into my mouth as my palm curved around her soft breast, teasing the hardened nipple with my thumb.
That moan was everything.
It was how I knew I was taking this all the way with Gemma. She would be my first. And damn it, if I had my way, if dreams and wishes came true for people like me, then she’d be my very last too.
I broke away to lave a path across her sternum until her tits were right in front of my face like a fucking king’s banquet. I tongued one, then the other, the hard nubs begging me to nibble. I did, and Gemma’s head flung backward into the stream from the shower head.
Was that too hard? I didn’t know, but her fingers were in my hair, digging into my scalp so I couldn’t pull away.
And fuck, I didn’t want to. I wanted to eat her pert little nipples for hours. Let the water run cold and her fingers turn pruney.
But my eager little Gem had other plans.
She pushed at my shoulders, putting a sliver of space between us, and then went for the hem of my soaked shirt, dragging it up my chest and over my head. I lifted my arms to help her, and when it was free, she flung it to the floor.
Gemma chewed her lip as her lusty gaze swept over my bulky muscles.
I’d seen her naked plenty, but she’d never seen me.
I straightened my shoulders, pride swelling in my chest at the look in her eye. My baby liked what she saw. Thank you, job that requires brute strength and therefore a gym membership.
“God, Kane,” she breathed. “You’re…” Her fingers grazed a path down my chest and rippled across my abs. The muscles jumped wherever her hand landed. As if rising to meet her touch. “… incredible.”
Her exploration moved lower. Closer to the waist of my sopping jeans. My mind was scrambling, wondering what she would do next.
She scraped her nails through the short patch of hair above my zipper, and I held my breath.
Eyes flicked to mine, the sexiest goddamn tease in them. And again, with that lip bite that only seemed to happen around me.
With a flick of her fingers, she had my button undone, my fly down, and my jeans and boxers low enough to let my boner out of its fabric cage. I groaned at the sight of it, so close to her. It was bigger than I’d ever seen it, and I felt like I’d bust open from the pressure.
Gemma stared down at it, going still. Watching her reaction made the thing twitch. “It’s so big,” she whispered almost to herself. “And so long since I…” Her face tipped up to mine. “It’s been years for me.”
“Good.” That was exactly what I wanted to hear. I didn’t want her to remember anyone else when I took her. And a several year gap could help that along.
She squeezed her hand around my length, and the feel of her touching my aching cock made my knees go weak. I slapped my palm on the shower wall to brace myself. Goddamn.
“Kane, you’re so hard.” Her hand pumped down and up slowly. Once. Twice. “You will feel so good inside me.”
Fuck. I groaned, my breath shooting out my body. “Agreed,” I gasped. I would feel so damn good inside my girl.
Gemma moaned as she handled me, like she was getting pleasure just from holding it.
“I’m going to suck you, Kane. I need to.”
My hips jutted forward of their own accord. As if any sane man would argue against those full, fuckable lips wrapping around his cock.
Gemma dropped to her knees on the shower floor, hungry eyes narrowing on my hard dick. She licked it, dragging her tongue slowly along the bottom until she swirled around the head.
I pulled in a breath and held on to the wall, wishing my legs were free of my wet pants.
She sucked on the head this time, softly, her lips wringing the tender ridge and her tongue tapping the bottom.
“Fuck,” I gritted. This couldn’t go on for long. I wouldn’t make it, watching her suck so sweetly.
But then without warning, she opened wide and took my whole length inside her mouth, moaning loud when I hit the back of her throat.
“Holy shit, Gem,” I barked out, and her eyes twinkled with sexy mischief that threatened to knock me clean out.
She pulled back, sucking hard to hollow her cheeks, and that was all I could take. I needed inside her. Now. As much as I wanted to take my time, there just wasn’t any way to make my body slow down.
I dragged her up, pressing her mouth open with a kiss and taking things out on her with my tongue. My hand slid down her belly until I found the thin tuft of hair that crowned her sweet little pussy.
Mine. God, she was going to be all mine before we left this shower.
Once I was sure she was dripping wet down there—and not because of the shower—I wasted no time getting a finger inside her tight hole. Her gasp broke our kiss, and she grinded on my hand for more. I added another finger, shivering at the way she clenched around me.
“Does that feel good, Gem?”
“Yes. Please, get inside me.”
“Not yet. I’m getting you ready.”
“I’m ready,” she insisted, and I knew she was right. Her wetness coated my fingers, my palm.
I found her pleasure-slitted gaze, wanting her to see my face when I told her the truth.
“I’ve never been with anyone before. You’ll be my first.”
The surprise registered in her expression, and she gave me her soft look. The one that was so private. That only happened between the two of us. The o
ne that felt like being touched from the inside out.
God. I loved her, didn’t I?
That’s what that achy feeling was inside my chest. That was why it was hard to breathe sometimes, yet so easy to smile.
“You’re a virgin?”
I nodded solemnly before dipping in to drag my teeth along her jaw. “I told you,” I murmured against her skin, and then returned to her gaze. “There are still things to work through. To scrape out. But right now, Gemma, this is more important. I’ve waited my whole life for someone like you to come along and wake me up inside, and now I won’t wait another second to have you.”
“Right here?” she breathed. “In the shower?”
“Yes. Right here.” Shower sex was supposed to be difficult, but I was feeling like a superhero. “And then in my bed. Maybe the couch. The kitchen table. The hallway. I don’t want to leave a surface untouched by us.”
She nodded, her eyes going wide as I thrust my fingers in and out of her body.
I pulled free, quickly shucking my pants and adding them to the pile on the shower floor. I crushed Gemma against my body, my hardness sliding up between us, a thick reminder of what she did to me. The miracle she was.
I held her close, my arms banding around her as the water fell over us, just absorbing the feel of something so amazing. Her skin meeting mine. It was everything I had imagined and more. Smooth, soft, a dream. Except I wasn’t dreaming. This was real. I could tell by the way she quivered in anticipation. The way she clung to me, her fingertips digging into my shoulders deliciously.
Gripping my throbbing dick with one hand, and lifting her around the waist with my free arm, I positioned myself at her opening. Her legs wrapped around my hips, and the heat from her center was like a hot breath on my ready cock. My girl was scalding. So hot. She was going to burn so damn good.